7 U.S.C. § 178 — Congressional findings and declaration of policy

(a) (1) Congress finds that natural (Hevea) latex rubber is very important to the economy, national defense, and the country's well-being. The United States relies entirely on foreign countries for its roughly one million tons of natural latex per year, and synthetic rubber made from petroleum can't replace it. (2) Congress also finds that certain Parthenium (guayule) plants — native to Texas and Mexico — and some other plants contain usable amounts of rubber. During World War II, Department of Agriculture research through the Emergency Rubber Project showed that Parthenium latex could realistically substitute for Hevea latex. (3) Congress finds that more research is still needed — especially on ways to increase latex yields — before private industry could make guayule or other such plants commercially viable. (4) Congress finds that building a domestic natural-rubber industry from guayule and similar plants would reduce dependence on foreign latex and bring economic benefits to people in arid and semi-arid parts of the United States. Such an industry would include both growing the plants and building facilities to extract and manufacture products from them. (5) Congress finds that the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, the National Science Foundation, and other public, private, and industry research groups have been researching how to develop and commercialize native latex, and that this research should continue and expand. (b) Congress also finds that developing a domestic industry to produce other strategically and industrially important materials — from native crops, not just rubber, that the U.S. currently must import — would likewise benefit the economy, national defense, and the country's well-being, and that more research in this area should also be started, continued, or expanded. (c) Because of these findings, it is U.S. policy to develop and demonstrate economically workable ways to grow and process Parthenium and other hydrocarbon-containing plants, along with other native agricultural crops, in order to produce critical agricultural materials that benefit the nation and support economic development.